flights 34, hours flown 23 h 35 min. This was the first loss of the type. Extensive sea search around Roaring Middle Light failed to find any trace of the missing Lightning. 5 March A Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar, 53-8152A of the 12th Troop Carrier Squadron, 322d Air Division, Dreux Air Base, France, departs Adana, Turkey with 3 crew, 15 passengers and 7,614 lb of cargo, makes a fuelling stop at Athens, Greece, departing at 1600 hrs. for Naples, Italy. Two hours into an expected 3:02 flight, the port engine begins to overspeed. Attempts to cut off and/or feather the propeller fail and the aircraft loses altitude. The pilot elects to shut down the engine by turning off the fire wall shut off. The engine stops, but the propeller shaft shears with the propeller windmilling at an increased rate. The aircraft begins to descend at a rate of 500 feet per minute. Realizing that the aircraft would not reach the chosen emergency airfield at Crotone, Italy, the pilot circles over the small town of Botricello, ordering the passengers and radio operator to bail out – all land safely with only minor injuries. Pilot Harold Cliffton Hardesty and co-pilot Harry Francis Dawley, Jr. then land the C-119 on the nearby beach at 1830 (dusk) with gear down, full flaps, landing light on, with an approach speed of 120 kn and touch-down at 90 kn. The roll out was straight for 800-1,000 feet before the C-119 veers to the right and into the water, with the cockpit filling to about the level of the side window. The two crew evacuate through the top hatch, sliding off the left wing and swim ashore. Although the plane had stopped basically intact, wave action overnight destroys the airframe. 12 March A Boeing B-47E Stratojet, 52-1414, of the 545th Bomb Squadron, 384th Bomb Wing, is over-stressed, exploding in mid-air over Little Rock, Arkansas at ~0645 hrs., debris falling on neighborhoods of the city, setting many houses afire. Only the co-pilot, Lt. Thomas G. Smoak, 26, survived, parachuting after being thrown clear of the explosion; two other crew and a passenger died, plus two civilians on the ground. The dead crewmen were Capt. Herbert Aldridge, 37, aircraft commander; Lt. Col. Reynolds S. Watson, 43, navigator, and S/Sgt. Kenneth E. Brose, 25 (passenger). Civilian victims were Mrs. Andrew L. Clark, 62, who was alone in her home at